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SEAMEN AND THE LAW: AN EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF LEGISLATION ON THE BRITISH MERCHANT SEAMAN'S LOT, 1588-1918 A PhD thesis submitted by Conrad Hepworth Dixon University College London 1981 2 ABS TRACT The aims of this study were to determine the general outline over three centuries of variations in the sailors' lot; to establish the linkage with the legis- lative process, and to ascertain what part Parliament, the unions and the executive had played in making and interpreting the law. It was found that the years 1838- 51, 1867-83 and 1905-18 were periods when significant advance occurred, with the earlier and intervening years forming plateaux where little change took place. The legal provision in respect of seamen was of three types - Admiralty-inspired, trade-enhancing and reformist - with the first two categories predominating. The Admiralty consistently attempted to treat merchant seamen as a secondary source of manpower down to the end of the nineteenth-century, while trade interests sought to have the men subject to strict disciplinary requirements and subscribe to a state-supervised contract of employment that stabilised variable costs. Unions were unable to influence the legislative process to any great extent because they had little real power until the large steam vessel provided a background to employment similar to that in large units of enterprise ashore, while the Board of Trade was dominated by anti-interventionists until 1890 and only slowly moved in support of the reformers. The arguments of Keir and MacDonagh that the Board was an example of dynamic expansion in executive capacity are refuted, with the Parris thesis that it responded to changes in society seeming more correct, Seamen were 3 the most legislated-for body of workers, but voluminous legislation often failed to touch upon essentials. The Thornton argument of a delayed industrial revolution at sea is developed by suggesting that the lag in the exploitation of the steam-propelled vessel, in successful unionisation of the workforce and in improving the condition of merchant seamen can all be put at about twenty-five years, so that the retardation of the shipping industry vis-a-vis industry ashore may be fixed at about a quarter of a century. Tight legislation, designed to strengthen national defence capability and expand trade, created instead a corset of regulation that merely restricted national growth. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abs tract 2 Note on footnotes, references and abbreviations 7 Chapter One - The legislative framework before 1800 11 Chapter Two - Benign neglect, 1800 to 1837 37 Chapter Three - Signs of change, 1838 to 1851 75 Chapter Four - Mid-Victorian simplicity 108 Chapter Five - The age of reform, 1867 to 1883 149 Chapter Six - Two decades of conflict 203 Chapter Seven - The years of hope, 1905 to 1918 260 Chapter Eight - Conclusions 299 Appendices 309 Bibliography 345 5 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page 1. Ethnic origins of Seamens Hospital 99 Society patients, 1821-31 and 1871-81 2. Mean numbers of steam and sailing ships registered between 1841-50 and 1911-20 106 3. Distribution of seamen paupers in England and Wales in 1857 135 4. Losses as a percentage of ship types registered, 1841-50 to 1911-20 166 TABLES Page Tables 1-4 Desertion statistics and census 242 figures Table 5 Compensation statistics 265 7 NOTE ON FOOTNOTES, REFERENCES AND ABBREVIATIONS General guidance to the form and content of footnotes has been obtained from British Standards Institution publications Copy preparation and proof correction CBS 5261), parts one and two, Bibliographical references (BS 1629) and Abbreviations of titles of periodicals (BS 4148). Hart's rules for compositors and readers at the University Press Oxford and the Kate Turabian work A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations have been consulted on specific points of interpretation. In the interests of brevity and accuracy, the following general rules have been adopted. Acts of Parliament A full reference to a British Act of Parliament in the form of: Great Britain, Laws, Statutes, etc, Coroner's Act, 1954, 2 & 3 Eliz. 2, cli. 31 is contracted to: 2 & 3 Eliz 2 c 31 in the footnote, provided that the text makes it abun- dantly clear what Act is referred to. Parliamentary Debates Great Britain, Parliament, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (Lords), 5th series, vol. 58, col. 112 is contracted to: 8 Hansard 5 58 112 in the footnote, with a date either in the text or in the footnote. (For the numbering of Hansard series' see under the Abbreviations heading). Parliamentary Reports The full title and reference of a report is given in the footnote when it is first referred to in the text, as follows: Report of the Select Committee on Shipwrecks, BPP 1836 (567) XVII 373, and on all subsequent occasions the short form RSCS 1836 and a page number is used. The bibliography has a column- list of the short forms to assist the reader who loses track of the full title and reference of a particular report. Parliamentary papers Similarly, Parliamentary papers have a full reference when first quoted, followed by a shorter version. For example, the Wreck Return, 1869, BPP 1870 (300) LX 760 becomes BPP 1870 LX 760 thereafter. When there are a number of references to an important paper and it is desirable to use a descriptive form to assist the reader, this is accomplished, by employing a short form as in the case of Parliamentary reports. Thus, the Report from A,G, Finlayson to the Right Honourable Henry Labouchre on the Merchant Seamen's Fund, BPP 1850 (178) 9 LIII 367 is referred to subsequently as Finlayson's Report 1850, and this short form is listed in the bibliography. Pa2ination Where reference is made to page numbers in volumes of Parliamentary papers or reports the following conventions apply: (1) A number in arabic numerals (456) refers to a volume page number. (2) A number in lower-case Roman (xi) indicates the page number of a report. (3) The letters Q . or QQ. followed by a number or numbers (Q.456 or QQ.456-457) mean that the reference is to numbered questions and answers in a volume of evidence. Abbreviations The following abbreviations have been employed in the footnotes, appendices and bibliography. AB Able Seaman BLRD British Library (Reference Division) BPP British Parliamentary Papers CJ Commons Journals DNB Dictionary of National Biography EIC East India Company Hansard 1 Parliamentary Register to 1805 10 Hansard 2 Cobbetts Parliamentary Debates and the Hansard New Series, 1803-1830. Hansard 3 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1830-1891 Hansard 4 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 1891-1909 Hansard S Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, from 1909 HMSO Her Majesty's Stationery Office ILO International Labour Organisation IOL India Office Library U Lord's Journals MBSHS Minute Book of the Seamen's Hospital Society MNAOA Merchant Navy and Airline Officer's Association MP Member of Parliament NMM National Maritime Museum NUS National Union of Seamen P & 0 Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company PRO Public Record Office SHS Seamen's Hospital Society UK United Kingdom US United States 11 CHAPTER ONE THE LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK BEFORE 1800 State concern for the welfare of merchant seamen may fairly be said to spring from the repulse of the Spanish Armada in 1588, for at that turning point in British history it was the merchant seamen who provided the bulk of the sea defence forces, Apart from the large number pressed to serve in royal ships, 1 merchant seamen serving in merchant vessels out-numbered the crews of naval ships in a ratio of eleven to six, while there were 168 merchantmen employed to thirty-four royal vessels.2 A census initiated by Elizabeth's energetic chief secretary in l583 had established that there were l6,Z55 men 'accustomed to the water' in England. and Wales, and as 11,262 men manned the merchant ships massed to meet the Spanish threat it was apparent to contemporaries that merchant seamen had a vital role in times of war.4 State policy was consequently directed towards keeping 1. See Ronald Pollitt 'Bureaucracy and the Armada: The Administrator's Battle' The Mariner's Mirror Vol. 60 No. 2 (1974) on the widespread impressment of merchant seamen in 1588. 2. BLRD Add. MSS, Egerton 2541 1-4. 3. William Cecil Burghley (1520-98), served Henry VIII as keeper of the writs in the Court of Common Pleas, Edward VI as master of requests, and was chief secretary to Elizabeth I for forty years. 4, Figures taken from Sir William Clowes The Royal Navy (New York edition, 1966) i 439. 12 up their numbers, and phrases such as 'for the increase in mariners' and 'for the increase and encouragement of seamen' are common in the titles and preambles of Acts of Parliament passed in the sixteenth and seventeenth- centuries. The welfare commitment first emerged some five years after the defeat of the Armada when a measure with the self-explanatory title of 'An Acte for necessarie Reliefe of Souldiers and Maryners' reached the statute book. 1 It made provision for payments to limbless or disabled men who could supply documentary proof of service and injury to substantiate a claim. Parishes with men in this category were to levy a rate, while payments were to be made by the county in which the soldier or sailor had been pressed, or where born, or where he had volunteered for service. The county trea- surer was empowered to make regular quarterly payments in approved cases. That the system was widely abused cannot be doubted, for within four years there was passed 'An Acte against lewd and wandringe persons pretending themselves to be Souldiers or Mariners' 2 with severe pena].ties for forging wound or discharge papers, while another enactment in the same session permitted the justices to increase parish rates for the purpose of relieving genuine cases.

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